Circuit City trade up plan (part two)

rs159

Ok boys and girls, I don't know but maybe some of you do - the Circuit City speaker trade up plan, how are subs handled - i.e. could you trade in a sub for a pair of speakers or a pair of speakers for a sub or a single sub for a single regular speaker and buy the other speaker seperately? Or are we stuck with speakers to speakers, subs to subs, centers to centers, outdoors to outdoors, etc?

rs159

26 views as of this writing - I'm sure somebody knows. C'mon people!

Ron-P

AFAIK, they give you instore credit for whatever speaker you want. Call'em and ask.


Peace Out~:D

rs159

The reason I ask is because I figured it out and to reach the goal of my ultimate system would take a rediculous amount of time simply paying for new and there are a few speakers I could unload and not shed a tear, problem is they are not all regular speakers, some are subs, etc...

RuSsMaN

My one experience with the 'trade up' policy.

I took in some, christ, I can't even remeber what they were. I think Infinity QPS or some such, coming up on 1 year since purchase.

I walked out with 2 pairs of JBL Coaxials for my Jeep, and a pair of Bose 141's (to sell on Ebay), and paid $3 and change. They considered THAT an upgrade.

rs159

Bose prob'ly sells better on mass market sites like ebay. Smart move Russ.

rs159

BTW, how did those 141s sound? just curious, I like the full range design (no Xover, a good thing at that price point I think), but I don't like that big ol' BOSE logo on it. Makes me think twice about the quality lol

RuSsMaN

I think they are o-k for an FR speaker, if you can catch them on sale for $80/pair or less, or bag em off eBay for less.

They use essentially the same driver as the 901's, but the cab is really cheap. I helped a friend put a zobel network (to smooth the impedance curve) in a pair he had, and we added some loose fill to the cab (which was totally empty). Major improvement.

Another big drawback, is the efficiency rating (I have no idea what it is, Bose won't disclose it), but I'm guessing its in the mid 80's, it didn't sound very good on low powered tubes until we got it on a 30wpc tube amp.

If you fancy FR, and can drop $150 shipped, check out the nOrh 3.0. Hell of a little speaker. Or logon to partsexpress and throw a couple Tag-Band FR drivers in some monkey coffins you have laying around.

Cheers,
Rooster

rs159

Sorry, no monkey coffins in my house!

RuSsMaN

Well, head down to your local thrift store and pick some up cochise.

Cheers,
Rooster

rs159

Huh?

RuSsMaN

Sorry, when I say 'monkey coffins', I'm referring to 'salvageable' speaker cabs, to rebuild. Ie, your $4, 15 yr old Realistic specials with foam rot.

I lack basic wood-working skills, so 'monkey coffins' are my out for DIY.... (do it yourself)

Cheers,
Rooster

rs159

I've seen the 141s in person, but the lighting was bad and I didn't really pay attention, nor did I listen to them, but from what I can tell from CC's pics, they look like ****. With **** colors and an ugly **** boxy shape and cheap **** plastic that probably also gives them all kinds of assy colorations in the sound. They also have ugly **** grills that don't even look like you can remove them and the grills look very poorly made with visible wrinkles and warped spots and things. And they also come with spring clips that transmit signals like **** hairs. For >$100, hah!

RuSsMaN

I dunno about spring clips brotha, I've got some Advent Legacys V.1, and a couple Carver amps that handle bare-wire on spring clips without any transmission issues.

The binding post is more a feature of convenience, rather than quality (imo). And these days it's 'cool'. Even the white Van speaks now-a-days are using generic 5-way posts.

Cheers,
Rooster

rs159

"Monkey Coffin"
ha ha ha, Does this count?

Montgomery Ward Airline Speaker System; model GEN 6625A; impedance 8 ohms; peak musical power 9 watts

(only one is shown because I allready disected the other )

RuSsMaN

Sure it does. A trip to your local hardware store for a 1/2"-3/4" piece of pine, plywood, or mdf. Cut the front baffle out with a jigsaw, maybe add a little internal bracing, place your new baffle on the front and cut your driver holes.

Play with some fill/dampening, use an FR driver, or modify the existing network (or buy a new/used one), pick your drivers for a 2-way design, rock and roll.

In a nutshell, that is. Do something with 'em, you might find it fun, and educational. If you want, I'll send you a couple sheilded Sony 5" woofs, a couple 'Linear Dynamics' (ala KLH) mylar tweeters (with caps @ 4000Hz), and some terminal cups to get you started. No charge if you are serious, and will document it for the forum, eg, share some pics, your experience, and thoughts on the project.

Cheers,
Rooster

rs159

Sounds nice and dandy, but first I have to get that glue out! God, the inside of these things is completely held together by super ultra heavy duty industrial strength glue. Also, not shown is the quarter inch lower than low density fiber board they used for the rear. That's gotta go too. The crossover, well, there is no crossover - it's just a cone tweeter with a cap (both of which I fried when I hooked these little 9 watt peak speakers up to my 100 watt continuous receiver )

Hmm... just a minute here, I just looked closer and the stuff they used for the "grill" looks exactly the same as the stuff on the 141s! How do ya like dem apples?

In all seriousness, I don't even know IF I am serious about these yet. I'm seriously thinking of going mini system for the bedroom because of aesthetics. The mini system won't be that wonderful, just your basic $150 micro system (I want to focus on finishing the real system before I pour money into a bedroom). They would be a good starting point though for the real system (which I think will be mostly DIY because I am flat broke). I dunno, I'll get back to you later. For now, I'm going to bed.

RuSsMaN

Well, if you assemble them, you can have all the components you need for the speakers for free. Run the Sony mid-bass full range, and the mylar tweets have a cap wired already @ 4k (which is actually right where the Sony rolls off). The Sony drivers are from the $25/each model you see at Best Buy etc, little two-way speaker. Rubber surround, poly cone, not a bad little driver.

THEN, spend $150 WISELY. $10 tuner, probably vintage Kenwood/Akai. $70 or so on a vintage int amp, and $20-$30 on a single disc player. Plenty left over for wire, or better yet, more media and beer.

Take your time, no hurry, just let me know. They are sitting idle in my parts inventory.

Cheers,
Rooster

rs159

Originally posted by RuSsMaN
Sorry, when I say 'monkey coffins', I'm referring to 'salvageable' speaker cabs, to rebuild. Ie, your $4, 15 yr old Realistic specials with foam rot.

Cheers,
Rooster

I was actually refering to how you called me a Native American. Click on the link - that why it's underlined, it's a link :rolleyes:

RuSsMaN

It's an expression, if you don't get it, well you don't get it.

rs159

Originally posted by RuSsMaN
...If you fancy FR, and can drop $150 shipped, check out the nOrh 3.0. Hell of a little speaker. Or logon to partsexpress and throw a couple Tag-Band FR drivers in some monkey coffins you have laying around.

Cheers,
Rooster

Just curious - how do those Tang Band full rangers sound? I've been thinking of playing around with some full rangers with maybe some supertweeters and a small subwoofer. I like the idea of keeping the crossover out of the critical ranges. I don't like the beaming effect, but what are ya gonna do?

rs159

(Related, but not really)

In my last post I mentioned the beaming effect. Why exactly does that happen? My guess is it's a phase issue, at certain frequencies the sound being made on one side of the driver (or array of drivers) is out of phase with the sound on the other side of the driver. Anyone have more insight into this?

RuSsMaN

The TB drivers sound great. Not on par with Lowther or other high-end FR drivers, but not REAL far off either.

I'm glad you brought up beaming. Why it is caused, I really don't know other than it occurs when a driver is 'driven loudly'. Doppler distortion, cone-break up, and beaming can be the results.

A neat design feature of the TB drivers is that they use a 'phase plug', instead of a dust cap attached to the cone. The cone moves, the phase plug stays put. This, at least to my ears, helps fight the afore mentioned maladies.

Cheers,
Russ

rs159

In your opinion (I've never heard them), could they compare to a standard two way design of the same price? (subsonic bass and dog infuriating treble aside, since I will use a sub and maybe supertweets) Just in terms of overall clarity and transparency and all that good stuff.

rs159

Ok, I think I made up my mind. I will build something like the fullrangers that I think Gidrah and Wangotango built - with the PVC pipe and all. I will build a small sub to get my feet wet in sub design too.

As for amps? Hmm, I dunno. I'll think about that. Sources? Well, I'll think about that too. It will be for a -BED-room, so everything has to be controllable from a remote.

RuSsMaN

Overall clarity, you will be pleasantly suprised, esp in the 3" model. If you don't like em, I'll buy em from you for what you paid.

Cheers,
Rooster

Oh, and Creek makes a REAL nice passive remote-control preamp. Not sure on your budget though.

rs159

I'm torn as to go with the threes or fours. The fours have higher power handling, but poorer high frequency response. Interestingly enough, the computer tells me that some of the threes actually have BETTER (more extended) bass than the fours. ****.

I'm aiming for an F3 of at least 80hz or lower, BTW. Even though everybody says "bass is omnidirectional" and all that, my particular room doesn't exactly follow the rules. I find bass is very directional even down to 50hz or lower. Sometimes in certain parts of the rooms, particularly directly between the corners, I get very weird effects such as bass aperantly only filling one side of the room, even when the sub is on the other side Oh well, what can you expect from a square (and almost cubic) room?

Probably little chance I won't like 'em. Even if I don't find them to be "hi-fi" quality, I've been needing some new computer speakers anyway (I'm still using the three piece system that came with the computer, it sounds like a bose AM system, but worse)

RuSsMaN

Ok, I hooked up my nOrh 3.0 (using the Tag-Band 3" FR driver) with my DCM 712 sub. 8" forward firing, 12" botton firing passive radiator, 70 watt B&K amp, 2nd order (12db/oct) passive high and low pass @75Hz.

The rest of the gear:

Carver m200t amp
Hafler 100 pre
HK FL8300 cd
16 awg lamp cord
Monster Interlink 200

AMAZING vocals. I'm talking DEAD on. Don't let the 30 w power handling make you biased. If it's clean, and esp if it's crossed (I did at 75Hz), you won't hear a better sounding speaker for the $, period. Those Tag-Band drivers are incredible, in all genres of music. As far as the F3, its right at 100Hz, but nOrh says they got it down to 75 in their enclosure.

Cheers,
Rooster

RuSsMaN

Another pic, wtf right?

rs159

So you're saying they are capable into the midbass region? Even the threes? How are they at treble - not just flutes and things, but near supersonic synths and airiness? How do they image? Point source, right, so one would assume near perfect imaging?

rs159

BTW, it's TANG band Or so the PE site says it is...